Crickets. 



177 





push its wav throu,G;h tlie farth above. Like the young grasshopper and 

 locust, the infant iield-cricket, roughly speaking, resembles its parent 

 except that there is no faintest hint of wings or wing-covers. Its first 

 business on hatching is to cast its skin, and this is done before it emerges from 

 the earth. Exposure to the light soon darkens his almost white skin until it is quite 

 black. Onlv a thin, pale line around the middle-bodv breaks the uniformity of his 

 sable coat. Six or seven times altogether he casts his coats as they become too 

 straight for his increasing corpulence, and before he is full grown the white girdle 

 has disappeared. Wing-buds have appeared, and ha\ e in turn dcw'loped into 

 expansible and pi acticable wings with which he can make music or flying excursions. 



It is not until the iield-cricket is about four months f)ld that he thinks of con- 

 structing a retreat for the winter. Hitherto he has been content with the shelter 

 of clods and fallen leaves, but possibh' a frost\- night has suggested to him the 

 necessitv tor a bur- 

 ro\\'. So he sets 

 to work with feet 

 a n d j a w s , and 

 exca\"ates a bur- 

 row long enough 

 to contain him, 

 and this is gradu- 

 ally lengthened, 

 and at the far end 

 w i d e n e d into a 

 chamber where he 

 can turn round. 

 Until this is ac- 

 complished he has 

 to back out every 

 time he leaves its 

 shelter, which is a 

 dangerous method, 

 for an enem\' in 



waiting ma\- seize him unawart\ Here he passes the winter, only occasionally 

 looking out ol the door on mild, sunn\- (la\s. 



In spring he wakes up fullv, and bt'gins to sing like the birds. The mating 

 season comes, and he mav have to engage in several fights witli other males, who 

 are all pretty quarrelsome about this time, though they do not appear to inflict 

 much damage u})on each othei\ Their battles appear to be much Hl<(' human 

 duels in which "honour" is satisfied when the o])ponent receives a scratch, and 

 the scratched one retires from the field, sometimes with the loss of a limb or two. 



White says : " It is remarkable that though these Insects are furnished 

 with long legs behind, and brawnv thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers, 

 yet when driven from their holes tlie\- s]u)W no activity, but crawl 

 along in a shiftless manner, so as easilv to be taken ; and, again, though 



Phnio by] 



[//. S. Clu-aviii, F.R.M.S. 



Head of House-Cricket. 



The luad of the domestic species is enlarged nine times to show the several sets of bitins; and cntting 

 organs with which the month is fnniished. The long, jointed appendages are feelers which appear to 

 help the cricket to a knowledge of the class of food it is attacking. 



